What are Business Constellations?An explanation of business or organizational constellations

What are Business Constellations?

In this video I tell you what business constellations are and what you can use them for.

Business constellations and organizational constellations are both synonyms for a a powerful, relatively new method to analyze complex problems, find sustainable solutions and free the energy to take the necessary steps. They give you in-depth insight and help you to establish the source of a problem in a short time. Business constellations can be used for analysis purposes or to gain insight into a decision you need to make as a leader. Business constellations can also bring new resolutions to the company and release energy and resources in the organization.

Business constellations are a variation of family constellations that are used in therapy to transform personal issues and create balance in personal relationships.

When you sense there is something wrong, but cannot put your finger on

When there is a conflict and the source is uncertain or doesn’t appear to make sense

Goal setting

Team building and resolving problems in teams

How do business Constellations work?

Business constellations focus on business questions. The following steps describe the process of a business constellation.

Typically a manager, entrepreneur or business owner with a question comes to constellation workshop. In a short interview the facilitator explores the question an together with the manager he decides upon the main elements that are important for the question. Examples of elements: a new product, a management team, a department, a goal, a market, a marketing strategy, money or the reason the company was founded.

Then the manager chooses representatives for the elements. These representatives are other participants of the workshop who do not know anything about the question nor the company.

He then places the representatives intuitively in the space in a way that represents his inner image of the situation. He than sits back and becomes the spectator of the constellation. Guided by the facilitator the representatives of the elements share what they observe and sense. They can also move based on their inner movement.

Slowly but forcefully a pattern emerges which is not created by rational thinking but by embodied knowledge and intuitive wisdom. This way the hidden dynamics of the organization or team are shown. Aided by the facilitator and the information that the representatives show, a path to a solution emerges.

From experience with many many constellations, I can tell that not only is the mind fed with an insight about the solution, at a much deeper level the whole system has been rebalanced and this way a new reality has been created. As a result energy is released to take the necessary steps.

The way representatives embody the information needed for this specific organization is called somatic information. It is completely different from acting, since it emerges as soon as particpants are placed as representatives and the information disappears as soon as they are released from their role as representative.

This phenomenon has been researched a lot. They have concluded that business or organizational constellations do work and bring results. They have not found the actual mechanics behind it. I think they never will, because this is not about mechanics. It is about tuning into a deeper level of consciousness.

What is the Link with Theory U and Teal Organizations?

Business Constellations are a great way to tap into the subconscious level and retrieve information that is normally not available to us. This enables us to broaden our sensing much more than when using other methods. Moreover learning to facilitate constellations requires you to develop your sensing skills and intuition. That is what you will surely learn in this training. It helps you connect with the source at the bottom of the U and by doing so you can help your clients connect to the source as well.

The basic stance for a facilitator is an open mind, open heart and open will as well as being connected to what is called the empty middle. This stance helps you to follow the energy of the constellation instead of controlling it with your mind and will. By following the flow of the constellation, the results are much more impactful.

This will enable you to facilitate people and organizations to find solutions that are sustainable and already in sync with the emerging future, and that are good for the organization, the people and the planet.

Business constellations are a systemic way of looking at businesses that helps us to create organizations that work in a natural and balanced way. Constellations are grounded in a holistic and interdependent view of the world. They are based on the premise that there are neither perpetrators nor victims, that parts of a system contain all information of the whole and that there is a system consciousness that affects everything and everyone in the system. Such a systemic wapproach to businesses could help us render any team or organization successful but also offer a doorway that help us co-create the next generation of organizations (referred to as “teal” in Reinventing Organizations by Fréderic Laloux) based on wholeness, evolutionary purpose and self-management.

How Do Constellations Relate to Social Presencing Theatre, Gestalt therapy and Psycho Drama?

Bert Hellinger, the founder of constellations (first family constellations) based this method on gestalt therapy and psycho drama. What he added was sensing and tapping into the collective consciousness to bring up information in different forms (words, postures, movements) that helps the client to identify the root cause of the problem and to find the sustainable solution.

Other than in Social Presencing Theatre, constellations emerge from a question. They not only show the current reality with its many layers, but add the path to resolving the issues at hand. The amazing aspect is that when more peace and balance has evolved in a constellation, the same is true for the real world outside the workshop room. People behave differently, the client thinks differently and old patterns seem to have vanished.

Constellations are both an experience of sensing and connecting with one’s intuition, as well as a way of bringing more balance and healing to systems.

Where Can I Learn to Become a Business Constellations Facilitator?

In the 5-day training Facilitating Business Constellations you will learn the basics in order to be able to facilitate business constellations. It will teach you the basics of systemic thinking, the basics of setting up a constellation and most of all the stance of a facilitator. You will learn to use your intuition and trust the flow of the constellation. The biggest part of the training is practicing, because I believe that by practicing and getting feedback you will become a better facilitator.